Fairies Wear Boots

Fairies Wear Boots (1970) is a song by the rock music group, Black Sabbath, about a man who insists that you must believe that he saw “fairy boots” dancing with a dwarf. “You gotta believe me … I tell you no lies … I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes.”

The lead singer of this song, Ozzy Osbourne, says that he has no idea what the song is about since he wrote the lyrics during a night of hard drugs and drinking. The only reason he knows that he wrote the lyrics is that his friends told him that he did. 

Goin' home, late last night

Suddenly I got a fright

Yeah I looked through a window and surprised what I saw

A fairy with boots and dancin' with a dwarf,

All right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah Fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

Oh all right now!

Yeah, fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

Yeah I saw it, I saw it, I tell you no lies

Yeah fairies wear boots and you gotta believe me

I saw it, I saw it with my own two eyes,

All right now!

So I went to the doctor

See what he could give me

He said Son, son, you've gone too far.

'Cause smokin' and trippin' is all that you do.

Fairies Wear Boots lyrics © T.R.O. INC.

In legal usage, eyewitness testimony is considered to be admissible evidence but it must be consistent with known facts, not fanciful, and the eyewitness must be examined carefully to ensure that the chance for intentional or even unintentional bias is minimal. Ancient Jewish practice insisted that eyewitness testimony must be provided by two men of unquestioned character before it could be believed.

Of course, some people will believe in almost anything (ghosts, visits by extraterrestrial beings, telepathy, fairy folk, etc.) just because someone adamantly insists that they “saw it with their own two eyes.”

Religious movements have sprung up around charismatic individuals. These movements seem to be primarily cults of personality, based primarily on the individuals themselves. The founders claim, with no verifiable proofs, to have seen visions (Edgar Cayce), or mysterious holy objects (Mormonism). Some claim to have met Ascended Masters who gave them messages for the world. There are at least twenty religions based on the UFO phenomenon. 

Christian belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is itself based on eyewitness testimony, but with a major qualitative difference. In the Bible, there are numerous reported post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, one to a group of over 500 people AND there is even an implied challenge to naysayers. If most of the 500 were still alive at the time of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, all anyone had to do was hunt them down and ask them what they saw.

"After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep;"    1 Corinthians 15:6

Book Comment: The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

F. F. Bruce was one of the pre-eminent New Testament scholars of the Twentieth Century.  He insisted that the New Testament documents are historically accurate and are better attested than universally accepted classical writings.  An emphasis of his teaching was that Christianity has its roots in history.  Though some religions (such as Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism) can stand independently of their actual historicity, Christianity is firmly grounded in provable dates and facts.  No credible scholar now insists that Jesus did not exist.

Dr. Bruce said,  “The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no-one dreams of questioning.  And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.”

Here is some evidence:

There are only two known copies of Lucretius’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1100 years after the originals were written.

There are only seven known copies of Plato’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1200 years after the originals were written.

There are only seven known copies of Aristophanes’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1200 years after the originals were written.

There are only eight known copies of Herodotus’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1300 years after the originals were written.

There are only forty-nine known copies of Aristotle’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 1400 years after the originals were written.

There are only six hundred and forty three known copies of Homer’s works.  The earliest copy comes from 500 years after the originals were written.

There are only one hundred and ninety-three known copies of Sophocles’ works.  The earliest copy comes from 1400 years after the originals were written.

There are 5686 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament.  The earliest dates to about 100 years after the originals were written.  There are over 25,000 partial documents.  The John Rylands Fragment, containing John 18: 31-33, dates from about twenty-nine to thirty-five years after the original was written. 

Luke says he recorded what was “handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses…” (Luke 1:2.)